Troy

Bogomil Gjuzel (Macedonia)

The gates of the city flew open
and in came the wind - like someone
who has long kept the siege, like
an empty lost soul of a victor
who after the victory expects nothing;
senseless idle gust, sauntering
allong the streets and worn
away by the corners; beggars breath
looking for warmth and crusts of bread.
Only the cobbles moaned
and the palaces shivered.

Then the wind brought people
who have thrown away their ploughs
to rust, let them till the sky, alone
and reap the harvest of the summer night
with fat grains of early rising stars
and let them leave it unwinnowed.
Instead the people started with their swords
the deep seasonal ploughing in bodies
with the unmistakable furrow to the heart
plucking it out like a rooted stump,
bursting the gall-bludder, and with the liver
feeding vultures roosting on their shoulders;
rolling at last the skulls like stones
usable only for building, but for that,
as always, never enough time.

Mothers parted from their children
until the milk and the cry dry up;
streets watered by pipes
of torn-out arteries still pulsing,
and hastily slain sacrifices
with the hope of nothing better
but to turn the temples into sties
with the inevitable familiar stench.

The wind untied the bells and the flags
and with its whirling tail
passed like a broom through the city
and bumped into the gong of the sun.

Back to MAKNET >